Joey Cain: Bradley Manning is the most famous San Francisco Pride Grand Marshal ever

by KPFA Evening News, 05.08.2013
Saturday Jun 8th, 2013 9:05 PM

On Friday, 06.07.2013, the San Francisco Pride Committee announced their decision that Bradley Manning will not be an official Grand Marshal of the city's LGBT Pride Parade on June 30th. Former Pride Grand Marshal Joey Cain said that it doesn't matter what the Pride Board does, that Bradley Manning is already the most famous San Francisco Pride Grand Marshal, or non-Grand Marshal, ever.

The two greatest gay heroes on the scene right now are Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald.

Connect the dots, and it becomes pretty obvious it is Diane Feinstein who put the hex on Manning. It is her and Obama, after all, in unison with the most fanatically right-wing Republican politicans on the planet (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Saxby Chambliss, and Mike Rogers), who are front and center in the jihad on visible government and democracy.

After Greenwald reported on the massive and unprecedented snooping into Americans' telephone conversations and internet communications this past week, it was Feinstein threatening to make the same kind of example of Greenwald and his whistleblower source that Obama is making of Manning and Assange.

But Greenwald has remained defiant, and has in fact thrown down the gauntlet. Here's what he had to say to Feinstein, Obama, and their fanatical right-wing Republican cohort:

"And so whatever the justice department wants to do they can beat their chest all they want, and people like Diane Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss can have press conferences threatening people for bringing light to what it is they are doing, but the only people who are going to be investigated are them, and it's well past time these threats start to be treated with the contempt that they deserve, and that's certainly how I intend to treat them moving forward, with more investigations and disclosures." http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YYbCJF1FBgU#t=182s

Folks like Obama, Feinstein, Chambliss, Rogers, and Graham, as Greenwald goes on to note, believe they can invoke the word "terrorism" or "security threat" and that gives them license to do *anything*. Greenwald intends to show them otherwise, that the ability to brandish some over-hyped security threat conveys neither immunity nor impunity from moral principles.

Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald: Profiles in Courage against creeping fascism. And they both just happen to be gay.

Politics periodically gives us these delicious moments when the curtain gets pulled back, a la Toto, so we can see who is really in bed with whom. One such moment was when the Republicans declined to run someone against Lieberman and instead threw their unbridled support behind him.

Barak Obama, Diane Feinstein, John Bolton, Lindsey Graham, Saxby Chambliss, and Mike Rogers -- partners in the war on democracy and visible government.

Harvey Milk, as a young man, went to Korea in the U.S. Navy to fight the communists. He was discharged in 1955, after which he came home, earned a math degree and used it to go to work as a stock analyst.In 1964, he campaigned for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who had joked that he would pave Vietnam and make it a freeway.

But Harvey was radically changed by the times he lived in. During a 1970 protest of the American invasion of Cambodia, he left a downtown office building and burned his BankAmericard in front of a crowd of protestors to make a point about corporate responsibility for the war. He was fired from his job later that day. Unfortunately, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in 2012, passed a resolution to name a U.S. Navy cargo carrier after him http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/the-battleship-usns-harvey-milk.

I was responding to someone who said that Harvey Milk would have objected if the Pride Board had agreed to let a "traitor" - Bradley Manning - serve as a Pride Grand Marshal. That comment seems to have been removed.

One of the things that makes us proud to live in the San Francisco Bay Area is that we have a radical, irreverent, peace-loving tradition here. That is not always true, but it is a goal we try to achieve at all times. It is why generations fled snowy New York for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, San Francisco. Gold Mountain is the name given to San Francisco by Chinese immigrants who established the oldest and one of the largest Chinese communities in the US here in our small city by the Bay.

WE WILL NOT LET OUR PRIDE IN SAN FRANCISCO BE TARNISHED BY THE PRO-WAR, PRO-CORPORATE MISNAMED PRIDE COMMITTEE. It is time we retake the Gay Freedom Day Parade from the corporate racketeer sponsors who benefit from the blood for oil wars US imperialism perpetrates to maximize the profits of the oil companies and munitions makers, the only reason the military exists. The Gay Liberation Struggle came from the peace movement against the Vietnam War, as the above history of Harvey Milk describes, and it must always be viewed in that context if it is to have any meaning.

Everyone, gay and straight, bisexual and transgender, and all other orientations has been invited to join the Bradley Manning Contingent. There will be a diesel cable car to ride if you cannot walk. It is always a very slow walk on Market from the Embarcadero to the Civic Center, about 1.5 miles.

We gather on Sunday, June 30, 2013, 10:00 am at Howard and Beale. Music by Kaimera & the Brass Liberation Orchestra. Daniel Ellsberg will be with us riding in a convertible.

DO NOT TRY TO DRIVE TO DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO ON GAY DAY AS THERE ARE ONE MILLION PEOPLE AT THE CIVIC CENTER CELEBRATION AND AT LEAST 50,000 IN THE PARADE. Take public transportation, such as BART or Muni Metro to the Embarcadero station.

The first contingent is always the huge 1,000 or so Dykes on Bikes, women on motorcycles. It is unknown yet what the lineup is but with endorsers as listed below, we can expect to march sooner in this 5 hour parade, rather than later.

ALWAYS BRING A BOTTLE OF WATER AND IF YOU NEED IT, SUNTAN OR SUNSCREEN LOTION. As we know, in San Francisco, the weather can change from a foggy 55 degrees in the morning to a pleasant, sunny 70 degrees by noon, and on rare occasions, the temperature goes above 80 degrees. Good walking shoes are strongly encouraged.

This writer, who easily remembers Harvey Milk, considers this a good time to revive the entire peace movement and oppose the horrifying wars and fascism of the Democrat-Republicans with their phone call, email, etc. spying on all of us, the frame-ups of Bradley Manning, Lynne Stewart, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and many more. As we make our preparations, let us be inspired by:

It’s blowing in the wind again, it’s drifting in the rain Before the dead have moldered yet or wounded healed their pain. I am so old, my grandsons, that I remember when I marched to hail the armistice and I was barely ten. That was the war against all war, to save democracy Praise God, they said, we’ve won the peace for all eternity.

I marched for Spain when some years passed and marched and marched and then Another war to end all war and so I marched again; I marched in Minneapolis, Chicago and Duluth, In San Francisco and New York I marched to shout the truth. I marched in Hiroshima and I knelt before a stash Of tens of millions bones of people atomized to ash, And with the distant rumble of new regiments of men I read the warning on the tomb, “This must not be again.”

Chorus: I marched to staunch Korea’s blood, I marched for Vietnam I marched to stop the napalm and I marched to stop the bomb, I’ve marched and marched and marched and marched, Oh Lord, I’m sure I’ve done my due, I’ve marched since I was barely ten and now I’m seventy-two.

I should be lying in the sun or dreaming in the grass But how when generals everywhere are polishing their brass? Entranced with dreams of four-star roles, so help me, Lord, they’re glad! It’s said that whom the gods destroy they first must render mad. Their burning eyes see No-Man’s Land and armies poised for action And you, my warm and loving one, you’re merely an abstraction.

It’s geopolitics again, and oh, with what finesse The players push their pawns about, these masterminds of chess! How cunningly they plot each move, how logically they spar And checkmate one another like the masters that they are. How stimulating, how intense, a world to lose or gain, Except for one dismaying fact, the players are insane. Composed, dispassionate they play this game that madness spawns And I can’t even look away. My children are the pawns.

CHORUS

Some people keep on fighting when they’ve lost an arm or leg Some still keep up the struggle when they’re fragile as an egg I’ve heard men rasping “I object!” with voices turned to gravel I’ve seen a woman raise a fist who couldn’t lift a gavel, And even with a broken heart one still can make a stand, So lead, my children, lead the way, reach back and take my hand. We’ll march again, confound them all, don’t quibble at my age! I’ll shield you with my brittle bones! I’ll nourish you with rage!

I marched to staunch Korea’s blood, I marched for Vietnam I marched to stop the napalm and I marched to stop the bomb, I’ve marched and marched and marched and marched, Oh Lord, I’m sure I’ve done my due, I’ve marched since I was barely ten and now I’m seventy-two. We’ll march again, confound them all, don’t quibble at my age! I’ll shield you with my brittle bones! I’ll nourish you with rage!